Professor of Health Equity,
National Centre for Epidemiology & Population Health and Director of the
Menzies Centre for Health Policy, Australian National University

10:05-10:30

Open space with Mr Brendan McKeague

10:30-11:00

Morning tea

11:00-11:40

Our State of Health....or State of Inequity?

Dr Roscoe Taylor

Chief Health Officer
and Director of Public Health, Department of Health and Human Services,
Tasmania

Open space is
also available at this time

11:40-12:20

Charting the Course of Change: Tasmania’s Response
to addressing the Social Determinants of Health

Ms Maree Gleeson

Manager of Social
Determinants of Health and Health Risk Factors Project, Tasmania Medicare
Local

Open space is
also available at this time

12:20-1:50

Lunch including
social activities – Social Circus and arts activity

1:50-3:05

Open space is also available
at this time

Concurrent workshops
including:

Thriving or diving? Global challenges that will shape the health of
all people for all time.Dr Nick Towle (Lecturer, School of Medicine, University of
Tasmania and member of the Tasmanian Climate Action Council)

Dear Departed - why do we invest in death and not
life?Dr Kelly Shaw (Public Health Epidemiologist, Department of Health
and Human Services, Tasmania, Associate Professor, Southern Cross University
and Lecturer at the University of Tasmania) and Dr Paul Dunne (Palliative Medicine Physician, Department of
Health and Human Services, Tasmania)

What we need to do to eliminate poverty in Tasmania:Dr Kath
McLean and Ms Meg Webb (Social
Policy and Research Team, Tasmanian Council of Social Service)

'Politics and Health' - Title to be confirmed, Dr Stella
Stevens and Dr Kate Macintyre (School of Medicine, University of Tasmania)

3:05-3:35

Afternoon tea

3:35-4:15

What is the magnitude of inequality in child development across Australia and how does
this differ across the jurisdictions – implications for policy and service
delivery

Director of
Population Health in South Western Sydney and Sydney Local Health Districts,
NSW Health; Visiting Professor in the Faculty of the Built Environment, UNSW;
and Associate Professor in the School of Public Health and the Centre for
Values, Ethics and the Law in Medicine (VELiM) at Sydney University

Professor Marilyn Wise

Conjoint Associate
Professor at the UNSW Research Centre for Primary Health Care and Equity

Open space is
also available at this time

10:20-11:00

Morning tea and book
launch of Dr Del Weston’s book, The
Political Economy of Global Warming

Canada Research Chair in
Globalization & Health Equity, Institute of Population Health , and
Professor, Department of Epidemiology and Community Medicine, at the
University of Ottawa, and Adjunct Professor, Department of Community Health
and Epidemiology, University of Saskatchewan, Canada

**************************

Structural Violence, Neo-liberalism and public
health: impacts on health and what structures might create healthier and more
equitable societies

Professor Fran Baum

Member, People’s Health Movement Global Steering Council and Director of the
Southgate Institute of Health, Society and Equity, and the South Australian
Community Health Research Unit, at Flinders University, SA

Open space is
also available at this time

3:10-3:30

Convergence and
discussion with Mr Brendan McKeague

3:30-4:00

Afternoon tea

4:00-4:20

Action planning

4:20-5:30

Creativity, culture
and celebration

Early bird registration:

$170 for two days ($110 Concession - please note: you should be able to demonstrate your eligibility for a concession e.g. a health card, pension card etc)

$90 for one day ($60 Concession - please note: you should be able to demonstrate your eligibility for a concession e.g. a health card, pension card etc)

Power, money and
resources: major drivers of health inequities - In dedication to Gavin Mooney

Professor
Sharon Friel is
currently Professor of Health Equity at the National Centre for Epidemiology
and Population Health and Director of the Menzies Centre for Health Policy at
the Australian National University. Between
2005 and 2008 she was the head of the Scientific Secretariat, based at University
College London, of the World Health Organisation’s landmark global Commission
on Social Determinants of Health. Between 2008-2010 she chaired the Rockefeller
Foundation global research network on urban health equity (GRNUHE). In 2010 she was awarded an Australian Research
Council Future Fellowship to investigate the interface between health equity,
social determinants and climate change (particularly through food systems and
urbanisation), based at the National Centre for Epidemiology and Population
Health, ANU. Before moving to Australia, she worked for many years in the
Department of Health Promotion, National University of Ireland, Galway.

Prof Friel’s
research is policy focussed and in areas of social determinants of health;
global health; climate change; food systems; non-communicable disease
prevention, and urbanisation. She
is co-founder of the Global Action for Health Equity Network (HealthGAEN), a
global alliance concerned with research, training, policy and advocacy
related to action in the social and environmental determinants of health
equity, and chairs Asia Pacific-HeathGAEN.

Open Space Program

Brendan McKeague has over 25 years experience as a practitioner of
group facilitation and nonviolence and restorative practices, delivering
education and consulting in group dynamics and systems theories. He has
collaborated with leaders and teams across many sectors including schools,
NGO's, churches, government, indigenous, community and private organisations.
Brendan has developed a way of working with people and organisations that
combines his native Irish spirit with his passion for nonviolent
peace-building, self-organisation and emergent design. Through his
background in education he has adapted a co-learning approach applicable in
all processes. He enjoys working with complexity and diversity in people, in
businesses, organizations and communities. He sees conflict as an opportunity
for creative responses and healthy growth.

Dr
Roscoe Taylor is a specialist in public health medicine. As
Director of Public Health in the state of Tasmania his legislative
responsibilities include the Public Health Act, Food Act, Radiation
Protection Act, HIV/AIDS Preventive Measures Act. At the national level in Australia he
represents Tasmania on the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee,
and the Community Care and Population Health Committee, and is a member of
the Advisory Council to the Australian National Preventive Health Agency.

Charting the Course of Change: Tasmania’s Response
to addressing the Social Determinants of Health

Ms
Maree Gleeson has qualifications
in nursing, psychology and education. She has spent the last 28 years
in the acute, primary health and community development sectors in which she
has lead community based health promotion programs, developed curriculum and
taught in primary health in the university and TAFE sectors and also lead
research support programs to encourage practitioners to evaluate and share
their work. After 10 years with the University of Tasmania she joined
Tasmania Medicare Local in February this year to manage the Social
Determinants of Health and Health Risk Factors project. She
sees her current work as being one of the most significant opportunities to
advocate for change and contribute to creating a better Tasmania for
all.

Lunchtime social activities – including Christian
Parr from Social Circus

Christian started
juggling in England over 20 years ago and has since travelled the world with
his circus skills. For the last 3 years Christian has been based in Tasmania,
co-managing a small mobile social enterprise called Social Circus
Tasmania.

Drawing on Christian's extensive experience
working within the circus industry, Social Circus Tasmania has been busy
developing a series of innovative circus projects with specific aims and
objectives.

Projects include, intergenerational and family
workshops, workshops with at-risk youth and elders workshops. Practical
outcomes include participants making their own circus equipment, learning to
teach on their skills and the creation of community performances. All
workshops are delivered in a style that encourages personal development,
strengthens relationships and builds community capacity.

Lunchtime circus activity

Roll up, roll up, the circus is in
town!!

We are very excited to have Social Circus Tasmania
(SCT) offer a short hands-on circus workshop during the lunch break.
SCT uses the diversity and excitement of the circus arts as a vehicle
to affect positive change in individuals, families, groups and
communities. When used within a social context, circus is an effective
way to encourage personal development, strengthen relationships and build
community capacity.

So, here's your chance to experience first hand
the wonderful world of circus!

What is the magnitude of inequality in child development across Australia and how does
this differ across the jurisdictions – implications for policy and service
delivery

Dr
Sally Brinkman is a social epidemiologist with the majority of her
research focusing on societies’ impact on child development. Sally is the
Co-Director of the Fraser Mustard Centre, an innovative new initiative
between the Telethon Institute for Child Health Research and the South
Australia Department of Education and Child Development aimed to improve
research translation.

Sally is
well known for spearheading the use of the Early Development Instrument (EDI)
in Australia, being the first to pilot the instrument outside of Canada.
Sally continues to work across the country to help facilitate the use of the
Australian EDI (AEDI) working with communities, service providers and
governments.

Internationally,
Sally works with Governments and donor organisations such as the World Bank,
UNICEF, AusAID and the Bernard Van Leer Foundation working with various
measures of child development for monitoring and evaluation purposes.

Sally has
over 60 publications including books, chapters, monographs and journal
articles covering topics such as infant mouthing behaviours, child physical
activity and nutrition levels, the measurement of alcohol related violence,
the evaluation of teenage pregnancy prevention programs, how child
development varies across communities and the impact of socio economics and
service integration on child development.

Our wonderful
ageing population - In dedication to Linda Jamieson

Dr Sheila Given helped develop the Tasmanian Plan for Positive
Ageing and is a past President of the Council on the Ageing. Sheila was
awarded the AM for services to education and training. She was a dear friend
of Linda Jamieson.

Twitter Workshop and reporting throughout the event

Ms Melissa Sweet is a freelance
journalist who moderates the public health blog Croakey. She is president of
the Public Interest Journalism Foundation, an adjunct senior lecturer in the
Sydney School of Public Health at the University of Sydney, and a PhD
candidate at the University of Canberra. She tweets as @Croakeyblog.

Equitable societies inhabiting a healthy planet

Professor Peter Sainsbury

is Director of Population Health in South Western
Sydney and Sydney Local Health Districts, NSW Health; Visiting Professor in
the Faculty of the Built Environment, UNSW; and Associate Professor in the
School of Public Health and the Centre for Values, Ethics and the Law in
Medicine (VELiM) at Sydney University. He is a life member and past president
of the Public Health Association of Australia; and a past member of the
National Health and Medical Research Council and the Australian Health Ethics
Committee.

Peter’s
qualifications and experience cover medicine, health planning, sociology,
health services management and public health.
His professional interests include inequalities in health, healthy
urban development, social relationships and health, the experience of
illness, the history of public health and social policy. Other interests include human rights,
environmental sustainability, figurative war memorials, cooking and eating,
the arts, cricket and Florence Nightingale.

Professor
Marilyn Wise is a Conjoint Associate
Professor at the UNSW Research Centre for Primary Health Care and
Equity. She is an Honorary Fellow of
the Australian Health Promotion Association, and served as a member of the
Board of Trustees of the International Union for Health Promotion and
Education for twelve years.

She has more than
twenty-five years’ experience in health promotion practice, research,
teaching, and policy. She co-convened, with Aboriginal colleagues, the
Graduate Diploma in Indigenous Health Promotion at the University of Sydney,
teaching Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students from around the
country. In recent years her work has focused on health equity and public
policy, and she is currently undertaking research to identify some of the
reasons that it is proving so difficult to eliminate inequities in health in
Australia.

Abstract for this forum:

Since 1990 Australians' average life expectancy increased by 5
years - a significant achievement brought about by multiple factors,
including improved access to health care and improved treatments.
However, some groups of people still live much shorter lives- a result
not of their personal choices but of unfair, unjust social treatment.

Marilyn and Peter have been working for 30 years to understand how
biological, behavioural, environmental and social factors operating at the
global, local and personal levels combine to create health and ill-health;
how the wishes of the majority can overcome relationships and structures that
favour powerful minorities while enabling disadvantaged minorities to have
their own voice, overcome their oppression and achieve social equity; and how
social structures and processes can let everyone be involved in collective
decision making.

In 20 minutes Peter will present a 'theory of everything' for
understanding health in its broadest social context. This will leave Marilyn
20 minutes to describe how societies can make better collective decisions.
We would then like to discuss with you, the audience, your ideas about
ways to create more equitable societies and a healthy planet.

The Political Economy of Global Warming - In
dedication to Del Weston

ProfessorDora Marinova is an Associate Professor
and Head of the Institute for Sustainability and Technology Policy (ISTP),
Murdoch University where she teaches in the areas of economics for
sustainability, demography and women and development. She is currently supervising
14 PhD students on topics related to sustainability. Her research interests
cover technology policy and development, sustainable business and
partnerships. She has published over 60 refereed journal articles and book
chapters and has conducted research for Western Australian and Commonwealth
Government departments.

Professor
Ron Labonte is Canada Research
Chair in Globalization & Health Equity, Institute of Population Health,
and Professor, Department of Epidemiology and Community Medicine, at the
University of Ottawa, and Adjunct Professor, Department of Community Health
and Epidemiology, University of Saskatchewan, Canada.

***************

Structural
Violence, Neo-liberalism and public health: impacts on health and what
structures might create healthier and more equitable societies

Professor Fran Baum is Matthew Flinders Distinguished Professor and
an Australia Research Council Federation Fellow at Flinders University, Adelaide.
She is also Foundation Director of the Southgate Institute for Health,
Society and Equity and has conducted extensive research on aspects of the
social determinants of health and health equity and comprehensive primary
health care. She is a member of the
Global Steering Council of the People’s Health Movement. She also served as a
Commissioner on the World Health Organisation’s Commission on the Social
Determinants of Health from 2005-08. She is a Fellow of the Academy of the Social
Sciences in Australia and of the Australian Health Promotion Association. She is a past National President and Life Member
of the Public Health Association of Australia.

Like Gavin Mooney
her research and activism has consistently highlighted the health dangers of
neo-liberalism and like Del Weston she has pinpointed the crucial importance
of ecology health – both topics seen
in her book “The New Public Health” (Oxford) now in its
third edition.

Abstract for this forum:

“There is a need
for a new political economy of health…..that needs to be very firmly about
health and not just health care” (Gavin
Mooney, The Health of Nations, p.190).

The 21st
Century has been characterised by growing economic inequities, looming
environment disasters and an entrenchment of neo-liberalism in the thinking
of many governments and international organisations. The net result for poor
people across the globe is that they experience forms of structural violence
in the face of the onslaught of neoliberal driven economic and social policy.

This paper will
look beyond the current social, economic and environmental crises and
speculate what the new political economy of health Gavin Mooney called for in
his last book, The Health of Nations,
might consist of. I will argue that globally we need a form of social
democracy which ensures that all the world population has access to the
economic, social and cultural capital to ensure that they can live a
flourishing life. This will require a retreat from the “market rules all
mentality” and a recognition that markets require regulation in the interest
of health and well-being. I will also argue that governments need to increase
taxation so that resources are available to fund decent public services. A
new political economy of health will also require a rejection of the ideology
of individualism which holds that individuals are responsible for their
health and does not account for the impact of social and economic structures.
Instead a more collectivist understanding of health will be required which
acknowledges that individuals have agency and that the realisation of that
agency requires supportive social and economic structures. The paper will conclude with an invitation
to the audience to imagine what immediate and long terms steps they want to
see towards a more equitable and healthy world.

The Social Determinants of Health Advocacy Network held its inaugural conference in Hobart last November

Visit our website to view and download some of the presentations

Visit: http://sdohtasmania.org.au

.

What are the social determinants of health?

The word social relates to society and means people.

Determinants of health are - broadly speaking - the things that affect your health - either in a positive way (they protect our health and keep us healthy) or a negative way (they make us sick).

If we put these things together - the social determinants of health are things (systems, products, factors) created, shaped and controlled by people that affect our health.

These things include education, housing, employment, transport and so forth. These are created and shaped by people. And because if this it's possible to change them.

As an example, let's look at transport. We - the people - have created our transport systems. Not necessarily you or I personally but as a society we've done this. The problem is that there are many aspects of the system that are not great - many of our streets aren't cycle or pedestrian friendly, if you live in a rural area public transport options are limited, the number of cars on our roads isn't good for the environment and so forth. All of these things about the transport system can affect our health.

But the great thing is that, because we - the people - developed this system in the first place, we have the ability to change it - to make things better and to improve health as a result.

There are other determinants of health - such as our genes - that we can't change. So let's focus on the things we can do to improve health.

More formally, here's how the literature talks about the social determinants of health:

The social determinants of health are the conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work and age, including the health system. These circumstances are shaped by the distribution of money, power and resources at global, national and local levels. The social determinants of health are mostly responsible for health inequities - the unfair and avoidable differences in health status seen within and between countries.

Here's a good place to start your reading:

A great publication on the social determinants of health is The Solid Facts.

Vision of the Network

All Tasmanians have the opportunity to live a long, healthy life regardless of their income, education, employment, gender, sexuality, capabilities, cultural background, who they are or where they live.

Membership

Membership of the Network is open to all Tasmanians who share this vision.

Membership is free of charge. Membership means you become a subscriber to our enews and that you get the opportunity to work with others who are part of this Network to undertake advocacy action.

Membership to the Network can be obtained by providing a name, organisation (where there is one but individuals can join as individuals), address, telephone and email address to the Facilitator by email:

socialdeterminantsofhealthtas@gmail.com

The Network currently has more than 220 members across Tasmania (as well as some interstate) from a broad range of sectors.

“The Commission’s main finding is straightforward. The social conditions in which people are born, live, and work are the single most important determinant of good health or ill health, of a long and productive life, or a short and miserable one. ……..This ends the debate decisively. Health care is an important determinant of health. Lifestyles are important determinants of health. ….But, let me emphasize, it is factors in the social environment that determine access to health services and influence lifestyle choices in the first place”.

Dr Margaret Chan, Director General, World Health Organisation.

Tasmanian Action Sheets on the Social Determinants of Health

Visit the Tasmania Council of Social Service website to download 10 action sheets on the social determinants of health in Tasmania.